What is a partner in advertising?

A deliberately broad word

Partner is used loosely, and the looseness is worth noticing. It covers ad networks, agencies, affiliates, technology vendors and individual media sources, and in reporting it usually means 'the entity we attribute this traffic to'.

Because it flattens very different relationships into one label, a partner-level report can compare an agency managing spend against a network selling inventory against an affiliate driving traffic — three arrangements with entirely different incentives and cost structures.

What to establish before working with one

• Where the inventory comes from, and whether sub-publisher detail is available.
• How performance is measured, and by whom — see biased attribution.
• What the fee structure actually is, including any margin on media.
• Fraud policy: what is detected, what is refunded, and on whose evidence.
• Data rights. Who owns the campaign data, and what happens to it when the relationship ends.

Evaluating one

Partner-level performance should be judged on the same cohort basis as anything else — activation, retention and outcome, not installs or clicks. Blended partner reports hide the same distribution problem that sub-publisher reports do.

The other thing worth watching is incrementality by partner. A partner whose traffic overlaps heavily with your organic base can post excellent attributed numbers while contributing very little, which is only visible through a holdout — see incrementality.